Fruitland Family Told to Leave Home

SALISBURY, Md.- Joyce Rozzell ran up and down the stairway in the house as a little girl, and now she says the Fruitland police want to run her out, with no place to go.

"I said take me to jail because I am not getting out of my house," said Rozzell of Fruitland.

The two-story white house with red trimmings is the only place she's ever called home.

"I don't know where I would go," Rozzell said. "I get SSI. I put all of my money in fixing up the house."

Rozeell and her husband, Ronald Peeples, have six days to fix the roof, windows and other structural problems that code enforcement officers say are needed. But, Fruitland Police Chief Michael Phillips said patching things up here and there isn't good enough.

"They've failed to meet the requirements that my code enforcement officers have given them about repairing the property," Phillips said.

Peeples said he and a friend worked on the home. They've said they everything the police asked of them.

"The father did some work on the ceiling but he didn't do it properly and it fell in," Peeples said. "It didn't fall in because of leakage, it fell in because of being improperly put up."

City officials have noticed a clean-up effort, but say that's not good enough.

"There has been a lot of clean-ups for the last couple months inside the residence but very little structural repairs, " said Chief Phillips.

Peeples says his family isn't the only one that's had to move out

"They gave me 15 days to get off my own property and move my trailer," said Adam Parks, Sr. of Fruitland. Adam parks senior use to live in fruitland- but now he's homeless.

"You wait until the dead winter to kick a family out of a house with kids. That's wrong to me," said Parks.

But Chief Phillips says that's not true.

"Ultimately with any of this code enforcement, it's for the safety of the community," said Phillips.

The family says they won't stop fighting for this house because it has been in the family for over one hundred years.

"I believe we met all of their codes. I am not going anywhere," Peeples said.

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